The present invention relates to noisemaking toys and, in particular, to a simulated firecracker for detonating the well-known percussion cap.
The stock of children's toys usually contains one or more toys of the noisemaking type. Of these, the most familiar are the whistle and the conventional cap-detonating toys, such as the familiar cap gun or torpedo. By way of background, prior art patents which have been made known to the inventors, illustrative of prior art cap exploding mechanisms with which the present invention is related, include U.S. Pat. No. 2,710,490, "Toy Torpedo or Bomb", U.S. Pat. No. 2,033,105, U.S. Pat. No. 1,662,971, U.S. Pat. No. 1,017,683, U.S. Pat. No. 846,884, appear representative, and U.S. 1,367,391 and U.S. 3,225,490 illustrate and disclose cap-detonating mechanisms decorated to simulate a conventional hand grenade.
Returning to the prior art patent of Ostrom, U.S. Pat. No. 3,225,490, by way of background to the present invention, a cap-detonating mechanism in the form of a simulated hand grenade, an anti-personnel explosive used by the Armed Forces, is illustrated. The cap-detonating mechanism there shown includes an anvil on which to place a percussion cap, a spring-loaded plunger-hammer mechanism, which functions as the cap detonating hammer, in which withdrawal and release of the plunger allows the spring to drive the plunger-hammer into the cap with the resulting explosion. Further, Ostrom discloses a cord means with which to withdraw the plunger to its retracted position and a pin to fixedly secure said cord, hence the plunger, in the retracted position until it is to be released to detonate the cap. Ostrom further discloses a means to initially slow the forward movement of the plunger-hammer once it is released for a short interval to provide a time delay before detonation occurs, as in the case of an actual hand grenade, and this is accomplished by means of a spring which grasps the cord as it moves forward with the plunger-hammer for a predetermined axial distance.
As is also known to the reader, there have existed a class of explosives formerly handled by children and now almost universally outlawed, known as firecrackers and like explosives. While the firecracker explosive poses an obvious danger to children, the thrill of handling a device thought to be dangerous perhaps provides some of the excitement that occupied the child and was reason enough for it to persist in being accepted.
As an object of the present invention, the present invention provides a detonating toy of improved construction which simulates a firecracker or other type of explosive without the degree of danger of injury. A further object of the invention is to provide a novel and improved means in a cap-detonating toy to provide a time delay between actuation and the actual detonation of the cap and additional sounds during the delay period. It is a still further object of the invention to provide a simulated toy firecracker which is of a simple, relatively uncomplicated and easy to manufacture construction.